The record piles up year by year. Governor Altgeld of Illinois cites this event in an official statement (Nov. 14, 1891).

On Wednesday night … there was a meeting of working people at which there was no breach of the peace and no call for police interference of any kind. Yet Inspector Hubbard forcibly entered with a squad of officers and in a dramatic manner, stopped the proceedings … ordered those assembled to go and get an American flag declaring that unless they did so he would adjourn the meeting, indulging in other threats … and practically breaking up the meeting…. Not a single man was arrested or prosecuted…. The act of the Inspector was an outrage … a clear violation of the law, for which he should have been dismissed. The law guarantees to every person, liberty of speech, the protection of the person and the protection of property; one is no more sacred than the other.”

Strike after strike has witnessed similar attacks on the most elementary rights, and today no strike occurs without such. From 1909 to 1917 the “free speech fights” of the Industrial Workers of the World most dramatically embodied that issue.

When denied the rights to speak on the streets, the I.W.W. have deliberately invited arrest, imported all members available, and filled the jails to overflowing until the cost and annoyance to the community brought concession. This ingenious nuisance was invented about 1909, and used vigorously as at Spokane, Wash., where the city council had passed an ordinance forbidding all street speaking within the fire limits—this being the only district, where workingmen congregated in any numbers. This law was amended to permit religious, bodies like the Salvation Army to hold meetings. James Thompson, an I. W. W. spoke, was arrested, and tried on Nov. 2…. The religious amendment was declared unconstitutional by Judge Mann, but the original restriction was upheld. Then all the local I. W. W. members went out and spoke. They were arrested under another ordinance—